Cash is there for collecting

Stuffed with value … this rare Javan rhinoceros trophy head sold for $108,000. Photo: Jacky Ghossein

If you find the modest returns from cash uninspiring, you might want to pay closer attention to the notes in your wallet - you could be sitting on a fortune. Sometimes profits are found in the most unexpected places.

Quality banknotes, as with the upper levels of stamps and coins, have become a good investment during the past decade.

But, as with all good investments, you need to have an eye for the right stuff.

''Error'' stamps featuring mistakes are valuable, with this 1974 series fetching $977.

There are serious collectors of symbols of hyperinflation. So what would happen if you took a wild punt on a few $100 trillion notes issued by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in 2008?

Advertisement

The $100 trillion dollar note may have more zeros than any other in history but its value is just $10. That's one zero, not 14.

A Sydney rare-banknote dealer, John Pettit, predicts that these are unlikely to ever be worth much more. He buys them mainly to give to clients as novelty items.

The 1867 Melbourne cup.

A much more valuable investment is the 1928 Australian 10-shilling banknote in mint (uncirculated) condition offered for sale in the latest John Pettit catalogue. Its value is $38,250, which represents a compound growth of more than 15 per cent a year since 1980 when it was valued at $375 by the Renniks price guide.

The most spectacular growth has been about 20 per cent a year since 1989, with just a slight deviation since 2007.

However, if you're unlikely make the right call on banknotes, you could always buy your own money machine.

CASH DISPENSER

Following changes to RBA regulations in March 2009, it is now possible to invest in a non-bank ATM and collect a percentage of the fees charged for each transaction. There are now more than 17,000 non-bank ATMs in Australia.

Own Your Own ATM is a Brisbane-based business that acts as a broker on behalf of three ATM operators of machines in such places as pubs, clubs, petrol stations and shopping centres.

They can be bought from $14,000 each for a business-hours machine to $28,500 for a ''through-the-wall'' version with 24-hour access. The claim is a 20 per cent minimum return each year with all servicing, insurance, security and payment processing done by the operators. In other words, they fill the machine with cash, not you.

Rewards are modest but regular. Based on your 30¢-a-transaction share, you should receive at least $2800 a year or $235 a month for a business-hours machine. If there are more than the minimum 783 transactions a month, the figures increase.

Level one machines (price $17,000) generate a minimum of $3400 a year. The most expensive ''through the wall'' machines earn at least $5700 a year.

Obviously, the location of your machine is crucial.

So, too, is the political situation. Adam Bandt of the Greens has suggested stopping banks charging for foreign (non-bank) transactions.

But the co-owner of the Own Your Own ATM business, Corr Piccone, describes this as ''political grandstanding that will never happen''. ATM investors will be hoping that he is correct.

NUMBER PLATES

Sales of number plates have been flat recently but might still represent a good long-term investment. This is now a buyer's market.

A kind of reverse snobbery applies here. It's the lowest numbers that fetch the highest prices.

What makes them so desirable - and ridiculously expensive to outsiders - is the ''right to display''. Owners will typically mount the original tinware in their climate-controlled man caves and screw new plates onto their cars.

Number plates in Shannons automotive auctions regularly sell for more than the most expensive cars.

The Victorian plate 97 fetched $180,000 at the 2010 Motorclassica Auction in Melbourne.

That's a typical result for a double-digit plate in today's market, although special combinations could go higher.

Three-figure plates sell for $80,000-plus; more for significant sequences. Porschephiles will happily pay a premium for the numbers 911 or 356.

A single-digit plate hasn't appeared at auction for several years but if one did, it would be expected to fetch about the $1 million mark, even in these difficult times.

The Australian record price of $680,000 was paid for NSW2 at a Bonhams and Goodman auction in 2003.

It's rumoured that two years later, Bonhams sold NSW6 for much more than that after private negotiations between vendor and buyer. The grapevine guesstimate was $1 million.

This scene attracts its fair share of speculators, who buy low number plates in the hope that they will increase greatly in value over the years. Some will; most won't.

STAMPS AND STUFFED ANIMALS

Something similar is happening with ''error'' stamps - the misprints and glitches made in the printing process are now prized by many stamp collectors as well as a new breed of philatelic speculators.

Gary Watson, from Prestige Philately in Melbourne, had a notable example listed in his February catalogue. It was described as ''one of the most popular Missing Colours''.

Fewer than 50 of these misprints are thought to have escaped into the public domain. This one was sold for $977 against a catalogue value of $2500, which Watson says was a particularly good deal for the winning bidder.

Prices at antiques auctions have generally been sluggish but there have been a few surprises. Anyone for a stuffed rhino head?

Taxidermy was among the big sellers at Warren Anderson's two-day $12 million garage sale, called the Owston Collection, which was held by Bonhams in 2010.

There must be a market out there because just about everything in this section sold for well above estimates, including a rare Javan rhinoceros trophy head ($108,000), a red deer stag head ($40,800), four penguin displays ($15,200), a Bengal tiger rug ($18,000) and even a brass-mounted horse's hoof dinner bell ($840).

Bidding bordered on the hysterical.

Few other examples have appeared at auction since. Once considered terribly non-PC, any examples of stuffed birds or animals could be worth buying or, better still, selling in this climate.

There's also value in any spare Melbourne Cups you may have lying around the house.

In October 2011, Sotheby's sold the 1867 Cup - the Queen's Plate trophy for that year was thrown in for good measure - for an impressive $720,000.

Both were bought by the National Museum of Australia. Approval from a big institution usually boosts the prices of any future offerings.

The previous record for a Melbourne Cup was for the 1890 trophy won by Carbine, sold by Sotheby's in November 2000 for $272,750.

Interest in the trophies for the races that stopped the nation have been strangely unappreciated until recently but collectables seem to run in cycles and Melbourne Cups may well take the place of all those baggy greens that are now proving very hard to shift.

SPOTTING A TREND

It was Professor Adrian Franklin of the ABC's Collectors television show - now in limbo - who made the point that collectors should be just as interested in the new as the old. His prediction on one episode of the show that mobile phones are worth collecting brought a mixed reaction from his colleagues.

The first designs, as large as house bricks, are already appreciating in value, so anyone with the smarts to pick these up could be sitting on, well, a bit more than what they paid. The first digital watches are also in demand.

Franklin's advice is to identify a collecting fad as it emerges and buy while things are affordable. This is advice all investors should follow.